Combined revenues of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Bureau of Customs from the implementation of Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law exceeded estimates in the first nine months, the Department of Finance said over the weekend.
Total revenues from TRAIN reached P91.3 billion from January to September, outperforming the target of P77.3 billion during the period, enabling the Duterte administration to allocate more funds for its aggressive spending on infrastructure and human capital development.
Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua said the actual total revenues surpassed the estimates by P14.1 billion, or 18.2 percent above the target.
He said that in terms of share to the full-year estimate, the revenue haul was about 80.8 percent of the projected P113.1 billion full-year tax collections.
Chua said when compared to the actual TRAIN revenues last year, this year’s nine-month haul surged 107 percent.
“This means we are now closer to completing the 2019 estimates, compared to where we were last year when we were trying to reach the 2018 estimates. This is definitely welcome news, especially for the
infrastructure and human development objectives of TRAIN,” Chua said.
Both the BIR and the BOC outperformed the government’s estimated collections from TRAIN, as BIR’s TRAIN tax haul exceeded estimates by P9.4 billion, while the BOC exceeded estimates by P4.7 billion.
Major gains in the first three quarters came from personal income tax, imported petroleum excise tax, sweetened beverage excise tax, tobacco excise tax and the documentary stamp tax whose total take showed an increase of P42.4 billion. Julito G. Rada
“As you know, one of the most significant provisions of TRAIN was the lowering of PIT. Losses from this adjustment were originally estimated at P96.4 billion, but actual losses were lower at P79.2 billion, or a savings of P17.2 billion. This was a result of better compliance, higher employment rate resulting in an increase in registered taxpayers and lower unemployment and underemployment rates,” Chua said.
“Imported petroleum excise tax collections were above estimate by P14.3 billion, owing to higher-than-programmed volume of imported finished petroleum products, particularly diesel and gasoline. The
over0performance is also evident in the overall BOC petroleum excise revenues for the first three quarters at P64.5 billion, which is more than double than the P31.2 billion recorded during the same period last year,” Chua said.
“Clarity in the implementation of the SB excise tax also improved revenue performance. The issuance of a revenue regulation that provided clear guidelines for the SB excise tax led to better compliance by the industry. The SB excise tax was above the estimate by P1.9 billion with both BIR and BOC exceeding their goals,” Chua said.
The tobacco excise tax take was also above estimate by P4.4 billion, a performance that Chua attributed to “better compliance as the government sustained its crackdown on the illicit tobacco trade.”
DST earnings exceeded estimate by P4.7 billion, as a result of “higher transaction value and better collection efficiency,” he said.
Shortfalls, however, were seen in the collected excise taxes from automobiles and locally refined petroleum products, with their combined take short of the estimate by P25.2 billion.
“Automobile excise tax earnings were short by P11.3 billion owing to lower import volume. This was seen, too, in the overall BOC automobile excise tax collections, which reached P23.8 billion below the
estimate and lower than last year’s take by 29.4 percent,” Chua said.
“The excise tax collections from locally refined petroleum products was short by P13.9 billion because of the decline in the volume of removals, and the shift to imported finished products,” Chua said.
